“We are not done yet. We may count our progress in inches. We may swim against the deep tides of greed and hate, but we are not done yet. Even if we do not live to see it all, we will be content to be the inspiration, to give all we have to free our world from fear.” Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook Page

Bishop Charleston gives us encouragement during difficult times when we are discouraged. This is why God constantly calls us to community. When our lights are dim, we feel we have lost our connection to God, we feel we have not accomplished anything, in fact we believe we are failures, there are others in our community whose lights are on, who are more connected to God, who can encourage and support us until we see a different picture. They are like Simon of Cyrene, briefly carrying our cross. They are like the friends of the paralytic lifting him through the rooftop to Jesus. Then in turn as we heal, it will be our turn to be the encourager.

Often people come for spiritual direction or meet with spiritual friends who indeed have been burned out or feel their life or their ministry is not accomplishing what they had hoped. That is our job as spiritual friends, to show each other where indeed God is working in our lives and how important it is for us to continue to be an inspiration to each other, remembering that we may not see the results. The results may be apparent much later, long after we have lived our lives and our names have been forgotten.

As I grow older, I seem more vividly to remember the people, the teachers, my grandparents, my co-workers and friends who encouraged me, who supported me, who never gave up on me. Most of them are indeed dead, so I can now only thank them by trying to encourage others as they did to me. So today, I share with you Jon Sweeney’s new biography of Phyllis Tickle, Phyllis Tickle, A Life, where he shares how Phyllis was a major encourager for him and myself as well as so many others, and whose birthday was March 12th.

Joanna. Joannaeibert.com

Purchase a copy of A Daily Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter in Little Rock from me joannaseibert@me.com or from Wordsworth Books or from the publisher Earth Songs Press or on Amazon.. Proceeds from the book go for hurricane relief in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast.